Indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for All

It doesn’t feel right resuming regular programming this morning without first re-addressing the grisly attacks on humanity, of which too many Parisians, and before that Lebanese, and before that Iraqis, have been victims. Because as powerful as the solidarity espoused by social media users has been over the past 72 hours, I wonder if it’s enough — if it will be enough. The dust is going to settle and the wheels will continue to rotate and then what?

It is a wonderful gift that in 2015, it’s an impossibility to not know what’s going in the world by mere virtue of scrolling through a photo-sharing app. Times like these define the cultural shifts of our generation — social media is no longer just social. It’s mainstream, a lifeline, a voice you rely on. And in that way it’s a fortress. But that we might delude ourselves into thinking that hash-tagging “JeSuisParis” will provoke actionable change is where I take issue, partially because I wonder whether such social-fueled worldwide attention continues to feed the beast. By giving these attacks a dedicated hashtag, does it give fame to the enemy?

So I keep coming back to this question: what do we do?

How do we funnel the new medium through which we rally and protest to not just show our allegiance but to produce real change? To contribute to making this world one we’re proud to be part of and to show to our offspring, the future generations of humanity?

On Friday night, I felt an overwhelming sense of inertia. How many “likes” is it going to take, how many more generations of teaching kindness, of training ourselves to believe in the happy ending — that humanity trumps vulgarity and love cures hate — will it take for all of that to finally come true? Because even if it is true, the reality remains that “all it takes” is a single night and half a dozen gunmen to turn our world upside down. I hate myself for asking this, and even more for starting to believe it, but could it be that our faith in humanity is our weakness?

Yet we need it to survive, so we remain strong in our weakness. We prove that we won’t be afraid to go on living the lives we’ve architected. We will laugh and we will love and we will not just marvel in the distinct air of freedom that permeates our world, but help those caught in the darkness uncover the light.

They say that living well is the best revenge so that’s what we’ll do. We’ll open our hearts and our doors, we won’t forget, we might forgive and above all else we’ll be vigilant in our celebration of liberté, égalité et fraternité.

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Artwork by Yael Bartana

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